Men In Blue (Badge of Honor 1)

“Did they get in touch with Peter Wohl?” Coughlin asked. “Matt Lowenstein said they wanted him to get an identification of Gallagher as the man in the diner from that TV woman.”

“Nobody seems to know where either of them are, Chief,” Kegley said.

Coughlin snorted, and then his face stiffened in thought.

“Thank you, George,” Coughlin said. “I appreciate this. Tom, get the car, we’re going for a ride.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Lenihan said.

“You’re coming,” Dennis Coughlin said to Matt Payne.

****

“Are you all right, Matthew?” Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin asked when Sergeant Tom Lenihan had eased the Oldsmobile up on the curb before the row house on Fitzgerald Street in South Philadelphia.

Matt had thrown up at the medical examiner’s, not when Coughlin expected him to, when they pulled the sheet off the remains of Gerald Vincent Gallagher, but several minutes later, outside, just before they got back into the Oldsmobile. Tom Lenihan had disappeared at that point for a couple of minutes, and Coughlin wasn’t sure if he had done that to spare Matt embarrassment, or whether Lenihan had gone behind a row of cars to throw up himself.

“I’m all right,” Matt said.

His face was white.

“Sure?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Matt said, firmly.

“You want me to come along, Chief?” Lenihan asked.

“I think maybe you better,” Coughlin said, and opened the door.

The door to the McFadden house had a doorbell, an old-fashioned, cast-iron device mounted in the center of the door. You twisted it, and it rang. Coughlin remembered one just like it on the door of the row house where he had grown up. Somebody, he thought, had probably made a million making those bells; there was one on just about every row house in Philly.

Agnes McFadden opened the door, and looked at them in surprise as Coughlin whipped off his snap-brimmed straw hat.

“ ‘Evening, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Chief Inspector Coughlin. I’d like to see Officer McFadden, if that would be convenient.”

“What?” Agnes McFadden said.

“We’d like to see Charley, if we can,” Lenihan said. “I’m Sergeant Lenihan and this is Chief Inspector Coughlin.”

“He’s in the kitchen, with his lieutenant,” she said. “Lieutenant Pekach. And Mr. McFadden.”

“Could we see him, do you think?” Coughlin asked.

“Sure, of course, I don’t know what I was thinking of, please come in.”

They followed her down a dark corridor to the kitchen, where the three men sat at the kitchen table. There was a bottle of Seagram’s 7-Crown and quart bottles of Coke and beer on the table.

Pekach’s eyes widened when he saw them. He started to get up.

“Keep your seat, David,” Coughlin said. Officer Charley McFadden, who was sitting slumped straight out in the chair, supporting a Kraft cheese glass of liquor on his stomach, finally realized that something was happening. He looked at the three strangers in his kitchen without recognition.

Coughlin crossed the small room to him with his hand extended.

“McFadden, I apologize for barging into your home like this, but I wanted to congratulate you personally on a job well done. I’m sure your parents are very proud of you. The police department is.”

Matt saw that McFadden had no idea who was shaking his hand.

Charley’s father put that in words. “Who’re you?” he asked.